Happy Birthday, Dear Matyas

Hungary's bullet-headed Boss Matyas Rakosi became his nation's first citizen after a long and diligent apprenticeship in murder, conspiracy, intimidation and other arts of Communist politics. Most of his adult life has been spent either in Hungary's jails or in Moscow's schools for sabotage. On Moscow's orders, he framed Cardinal Mindszenty, executed his colleague Laszlo Rajk, helped the Russians to kidnap Majority Leader Bela Kovacs, and forced Premier Ferenc Nagy into exile.

Last week Matyas Rakosi turned 60. Hungarians celebrated his birthday with appropriate gestures:

P: A marble plaque was unveiled in a Czeged secondary school: "Comrade Rakosi studied here. He always got excellent marks in mathematics. At school meetings he played an important role. Old, experienced teachers learned from the 18-year-old boy."

P: The national railways announced that "in honor of Rakosi's birthday, all workers' trains--with one exception--ran on schedule."

P: In Miscolc, Tractor Driver Rozsi Szabo enrolled for a course in political orientation. She felt, said Rozsi, that she "absolutely had to make a worthy labor offer for Rakosi's birthday."

P: At Budapest's Rokus Hospital, Staff Neurologist Endre Kubanyis whipped out a two-volume treatise on trigeminal neuralgia, in honor of the leader's birthday.

P: Laborers at a Budapest crane factory attended the factory's political school in twice their usual number, informed one another and the press that "the most beautiful experience of their lives had been their first meeting with Comrade Rakosi in the winter of 1945."

P: At the Youth Shoe Factory, workers promised to improve the quality of their shoes, hitherto declared only 80% satisfactory.

P: In Sztalinvaros, a youth brigade "accomplished their work norms even in a snow storm."

P: In Budapest's Nepszava, an editorial writer summed it all up: "Wisdom . . . Greatness . . . Love of Life . . . Love of Humanity . . . What is perseverance? What is courage? Those questions are answered in the example of Comrade Rakosi's life."

At a Budapest general school, the great Comrade himself dropped in to shed the radiance of his example on the pupils. One little girl complained that she did not like gymnastics. Ah, said Rakosi, there was a time when he, too, had thought athletics unimportant, but he had learned better. Why, once, in the press of political business, he remembered, he had had to swim right across the Danube.

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